Bookery

I thought I was not going to make it... masters of deception and great liars... burn his pulps... collapsed and died... the big house... rabid... might be dead... lives of quiet desperation... march on to the bitter end where we will eat dirt in the boneyard... I'm confused! I thought I was looking at a pulp thread, but apparently have wandered into some first-hand account of life with the Cartels!!!

Hard to say if it's that, or it's just comic collectors thinking that it should be priced like a comic with a similar cover? Either way, uninformed buyers leaping into the pulp market are going to likely get burned in a big way down the road, and that's not good for the hobby. Though as a rule, pulps are harder to obtain than vintage comics, it's not always the case. A science-fiction pulp from, say, 1942, is probably much easier to come by than comic books from that year. As for the science-fiction reprint pulps of the '40s and '50s... Famous Fantastic Mysteries, A. Merritt's Fantasy, Fantastic Novels, Fantastic Story... these are among the most common pulps there are. I'm in a small Ohio suburb, and I've had hundreds of them over the years. Even in high grade, they aren't all that scarce.

Well, it's likely that really isn't FMV (again, whatever that means). No dealer prices a book at $51,000... that tells me you're looking at an auction result. If that's a single result, by definition, FMV would be somewhere below that, since $51k is the highest price anybody was willing to pay at that moment in that forum (if it's a big auction house like Heritage, that means it's the most money even the "big boys" who play in that arena were willing to pay, all across the planet). If you're looking at an average price for a given period (a month, a year?), then it's still the average price the big auction house players were willing to pay. Also, did that price represent a book that's been escalating, or one that has been falling in price (most likely the latter if you're looking at recent results). Also, is your copy identical to the one that sold. Or is it white pages vs. off-white copies? Even with equal grades, different buyers will accept or reject certain flaws. I have one customer of golden-age who will turn down any book with a staple-pull, regardless if it looks otherwise near mint. The next guy may be fine with a staple-pull, but won't touch a book with a corner-bend. But they may grade the same. It's likely if Heritage sold a big book in its auction for $51k, the realistic price for a show or shop dealer is probably going to be closer to $45k. If you're just going to charge the same as a billion-dollar auction house, why should a customer buy from you? Now your $37k offer is actually more like 82% of FMV. And that's assuming the book can be turned quickly before it possibly drops even more. Maybe a dealer is content with a quicker turnover at $40-$42k. I could make nearly $2k on that $37k just by putting it in a CD right now... with no risk whatsoever. There are bonds and stock dividends out there that pay even more. Maybe $37k is low... if it's a truly hot book like SpMan 1... but it's probably not ludicrously low. If it's a golden-age book that's showy but is going to take a while to move, then it's probably more than fair.

And some of the spicys from the same collection...

Here's a few scans from the lady's collection... I apologize for the price labels which are quite annoying... I was going to take time to properly scan them after I graded them, but word got out and the sold so quickly I never got back to it...but you can still get an idea of them, and how it's a shame we don't know more about them (or who has the rest of them that they sold in the '80s!).

Yes, sorry... forgot that he talked with you. BTW... I spelled the name wrong above... it's Von Crabill (confirmed on on old ad from the TV station he worked at). Tom also confirmed that at the time, the books were not referred to as Strassers (they were just called "those pulps that Von picked up") The Strasser connection was made later from names written on them. The confusion I made with Spicys vs. Shadows was from the fact that around the same time, from this same area, another collection of very high grade pulps was discovered. The two collections were polar opposites... the Strasser collection had none of the "girly" titles or covers, while this other collection was almost nothing but. The second collection would definitely have merited pedigree status, but too little is known about it. A couple had bought it out of a house and began peddling it to dealers, and eventually at one of the PulpCons. I was talking with Tom again today, and we suddenly realized we were describing the same collection that I purchased pulps from 30 years later! In 2018 an elderly woman (80s) brought in 2 batches of pulps... one was very high grade Weird Tales, the second was Spicys, Horror Stories, Terror Tales, and even one Saucy. There were about 75 pulps total. I assumed from the condition they were her husband's original-owner collection. But no, it turns out they were bought second-hand by them, and they sold most of them decades ago. But when moving, she found one box they'd forgotten about, and those were the ones I picked up in 2018 (and they were still in magnificent condition!). Which, to dovetail back to my original point, showcases just how hard it's going to be to ever pinpoint true original-owner pulp pedigrees. Strasser, Yakima, maybe one or two more will be determined. But they are just so old and fragile... the combination of original owner, high grade, and a selection of keys usually necessary to what we think of as pedigrees is going to be tough. Even the Yakimas, being latter-era science-fiction, wouldn't have a lot of what we think of as significant "keys" in them, most sf keys being from the 20s and 30s ( a few classic covers aside).

My error. I meant Shadows. I'm not saying they aren't a pedigree, just wondered how many could be identified after the fact. And you've answered that. My information, such as it is, comes from a friend of Crabell's who dealt with him regularly. He was probably one of the first to see the collection and purchase books (only about 30-50, I think, as that's all he could afford at the time). That was before they ever made it to any shows. CrabelL was a rare book dealer who never dealt in pulps until he purchased this collection at an estate sale on a whim (his wife was furious that he'd done so). He apparently filled his Cadillac with them to the extent that he could barely see to drive. I was at his house only once with my father who was also a rare book dealer at the time, doing some purchasing. Unfortunately, I don't recall if there were pulps there or not. There were lots of old books in the basement of the house, as well as in a separate shed-barn out back. That's about the extent that I personally remember. But my customer was there with some frequency... I'll have to ask him how many pulps were there when he last saw them, since he had a direct interest in them.

Yes, I forgot about the Strassers, but in all fairness, they have been little known until recently outside the hardcore pulp community. And is there any real listing of them? They were discovered so long ago (late '70s I think, by Von Crabell right here in my own area... I visited his home about that time, but wasn't paying much attention to pulps then)... this was way before anyone was tracking or even thinking in terms of pedigrees. Crabell didn't keep a list to the best of my knowledge, and they were dispersed early on (one of my local customers owned a number of the Spicys for a time). I know you've spent a lot of time tracking them down, but will there ever be a real way of knowing just what actual books belong to the collection beyond shadowy memories of some of the early buyers? Or am I wrong, and did Crabell maintain an inventory listing?

It's not a matter of denying pedigree status... I'm just not sure there are collections that qualify, is my point. Yes, Yakima has been accepted, and they probably will put it on the ones for which records have been maintained. But by traditional definitions, a pedigree is a collection that was put together by a single buyer fresh off the newsstands and then maintained in high quality ever since. Since the heyday for collectible pulps was the 20s and 30s... going to be much more difficult to have surviving original collections. Plus, the paper was generally inferior even to that of comics, so high-grades holding up for going on 100 years is tough. I think the emphasis for pulp collectors will be on collections that have carefully been cultivated, even if second-hand or later, or come from famous collectors (Frank Robinson, Jim Steranko, etc.). I'm sure such collections will be noted.

There really aren't any pedigrees in pulps like there is with comics (at least so far). The only one considered a pedigree is the Yakima books, but even they were primarily from near the end of the pulp era, so nothing like the Church collection in terms of scope. There are probably more likely to be provenance collections (like the Frank Robinson collection) than actual pedigrees like comics (i.e., purchased off the newsstand by a single buyer).

Also, with these periodic threads about dealers (usually in the negative), what exactly is a "dealer" anymore, anyway? All but a few of my customers are dealers of one sort or another. I have several folks who come in nearly every day to see what I've put out so they can buy it and flip it on eBay, Facebook, Whatnot, etc. I have one gentleman in his 80s who buys cheap older books and sells them in lots at local auction houses. I have show dealers buy from me regularly. I have another customer who buys rough books, repairs them and sends them to CGC to get Conserved grades, then flips them. I have another customer who is quite good at finding under-priced items in dealers' stock and then flipping them to other dealers (nobody can keep track of everything). I don't have a problem with any of this... heck, my business depends on them! If you've been selling on eBay for years, regardless of if you tell yourself it's just from your own ever-shifting collection, then you are a dealer too.

Not only does it depend upon what the "key" is, it depends on when it is being sold. During the bubble, a dealer might pay "full value" on an issue, because the odds were that in 2-3 months it would be worth even more, so his investment seemed relatively safe. For the past year, the exact opposite has been true. And why would I pay 90% right now for anything, assuming there is anything such as an accurate FMV (which there isn't). Depending upon the credit card (and today nearly all sales in my shop are done with credit cards) the dealer can be charged as much as 4%. And for the time being I can get 5% on a CD or money market. Therefore buying at 90% means assuming I do sell it in a timely fashion, I'm just breaking even. Not only that, but if it's an expensive book and I've sold it to one of my regulars, chances are they won't have any more money to spend for awhile. So I've just made nothing and lost other near-future sales to boot. As has been said, it is rare for anyone to sell me just one "hot" book. It's more likely I'll be offered a low-grade X-Men #1 mixed in with 100 okay under-$100 books and 1000 bulk books for the dollar bins. And as anyone who has ever set up at shows knows, even at $1 you are very lucky if you can move even half of your inventory. People on these threads who tell you there is just one specific way you should sell are delusional. Depending upon the mix, the timing, whether you expect cash in hand now or a check after an auction completes 6 months from now, whether you want a known quantity up front, or can accept the vagaries of an auction (good or bad), are you expecting the market to rise in the near future, fall, or remain steady... all of this must be taken into account depending upon one's circumstances. Whether selling to dealers, on consignment, to auction houses, on eBay, or driving out to that remote house because someone on Craig's List will pay you "full value"... each has their benefits and detriments. There is no one-size-fits-all answer.

I have it on good authority that the labels will indeed be yellow, but they are adding emojis in the corner to designate whether they are witnessed or not...

When you figure a paperback must be rare, for no other reason than... how many people could have possibly bought one to begin with!

I'm not sure of the history behind them... according to Holroyd there are only 29 of them, and they all came out in 1942.

I think the pressure is going to really be for high-grades. It's almost impossible to read one of these older paperbacks, even in their day, without leaving some wear. That means truly VF paperbacks have to have never been read. And even if they were never read... some publishers like early Dell (lamination that peels off on its own) or Hillman (poorly made) can be excruciatingly hard to find in top condition.

Look, it doesn't matter how many copies there are. It comes with 80 exclamation points (yes, I counted) so it's gotta be a fantastic deal regardless.

Mostly, but that's probably true of any "vintage" collectible. Paperbacks are a slow market in my area, however, oddly enough, I probably have more young people in their 20s coming in looking for old paperbacks than old comics. I just got in a want-list a couple of days ago from a young woman in her 20s that includes Ursula Le Guin, PKD, Joanna Russ, Barry Malzberg, Robert Silverberg, etc. Apparently, there are a number of role-playing games based off old sf authors, and players are seeking the original stories out as source material, reviving interest. Of course, I can sell any edition from any era of Lovecraft, Howard and Ellison. And there are still Frazetta-cover fans. The oldest stuff is actually slower-moving... old Avons, Dell mapbacks, early Pocket Books.

Pulp collectors seem to be a hardier lot than their comics counterparts. They've not only dealt with, but embraced The Man in Purple, The Purple Cloud, The Purple Empire and the Purple Scar. I suspect they won't be too daunted by the Purple Label!

Yes. Trimming should never be considered restoration since, by definition, nothing has been "restored". Quite the opposite... part of the book has been permanently removed. Restoration is repairing a book in such a way as it appears closer to its original state. A book missing its overhang does not appear as its original state. Tear seals, color-touch, paper replacement is all restoration. Things like tape and trimming are not, since neither makes the book appear as it once was. Trimming (and of course, I mean, post-production trimming, as many pups were publisher-trimmed to begin with) is so common in pulps that if done neatly is not seen as egregious as it is with comics, though it still definitely impacts grade. And to be fair, some pulps had such large overhangs it must have made them annoying to try and read them in their day. In the 1800s some hardbacks were published with their pages still uncut, and it was up to the reader to cut them apart themselves in order to read the book. These were cost-saving efforts by the publishers, at a time when fractions of a penny made a difference. I like that CGC not only notes trimming, but also notes how many sides have been trimmed. This is important, since some pulps had overhang on 3 sides, some on top and bottom, and some on one side only.

D'oh!

If the covers didn't entice readers to buy the pulp, most of those authors wouldn't have had careers. I suspect more time and sweat went into producing some of those paintings then was spent on cranking out some of the stories. I'm also not sure how one goes about so easily dismissing the accomplishments of Norman Saunders, H.J. Ward, Rudolph Belarski, Allen Anderson, etc.. It's like saying "I'd have bought that original Frederick Remington painting, if only it had a decent caption".

Something to consider. Actually, for the most part, the 2005 edition did it this way. For the 2020 guide, I was going for something that could be read in a somewhat entertaining fashion, without just being totally dry data. You would laugh if you knew how much effort I did to try to come up with a different way of wording all of the similar western pulp entries, for instance! Or, the cover art for one title is "collectible", in another "sought-after", in a third "popular" or "enticing" or "in-demand" or "valued by collectors", etc.

Thanks for the kind words. As for the bolded part above, I do caution newcomers about taking auction prices with a grain of salt. Truly expensive and ultra-rare pulps may be more accurately represented at the big auction houses, if for no other reason than this is often the only forums in which they appear for sale. But there is definitely auction-exuberance with more common material. For instance, I'm currently tracking auction data continually for my own uses, as well as in case there is a 4th (and final) guide. I see a number of science-fiction pulps, for instance, going for 2x-5x the guide prices at Heritage and other auction houses. Yet simultaneously, the same books can be bought off eBay or mycomicshop.com for at guide prices or smaller premiums up to 1.5x.

Not entirely accurate. There have been 3 editions under slightly different titles... 2001, 2005 and 2020. Depends on what you mean by accurate. When word leaked out prior to the 2001 guide coming out, there was a general panic in the pulp-convention community. I was some interloper they didn't know (despite having attended several PulpCons) and surely the guide was designed purely to drive up prices (how this was supposed to help me, I don't know, as I didn't have a large inventory at the time). There were a lot of on-line attacks, and "guarantees" the guide would be over-priced. When I premiered the book at the 2001 PulpCon I even arrived to find that my dealer's table has been stuck back in an exit alcove and turned to face the wall. The show-runner thought this was amusing. To my own fault, the advance word of the distrust in the book probably made me overly cautious and very conservative in my pricing (though to be fair... every price in the book was exactly how I priced my own stock). So when the guide actually did premiere, the complaints then switched to how all of the prices were too low! The 2005 guide prices were fairly accurate for awhile... the market had settled down after an initial spike due to an influx of eBay sales. The 2020 guide came out just before CGC announced it would be slabbing pulps. That drove prices up almost immediately. Then the Covid collectibles spike drove everything up even further. That guide was out-dated (price-wise) pretty much out of the gate, which is probably why Heritage didn't keep it in print. However, though I generally don't complain about it, I always take some issue with the books being described simply as price guides. I am a data completist... rather compulsive about it, actually. The books were born of my own extensive note-taking and compilations for years just so I could be consistent with my own inventories. I would have been thrilled if someone else had done it. But no one did. Pricing was always the last thing I worked on before publication. All other information came first. Save for a few errors corrected in each new edition, and the typical typos, the other information contained in them is quite accurate... authors, artists, title-changes, 1st appearances, publishers, format, scarcity indicators, etc. To include all of this information and leave out pricing just to appease a few who preferred to keep that information to themselves, seemed a disservice to collectors, as well as my own desire to be comprehensive. There are a number of different sources where such information can be cobbled together, especially now more than in 2001, but the Bookery guides remain the only sources where all of this is in one place. Yes, pricing in them is dated, though may be useful in terms of relative pricing (issue x is worth twice as much as issue y, etc.), but the rest of the data is still useful, depending upon your collecting needs. Ideally, an issue-by-issue guide would be best... but it would run 1500 pages.